A law enforcement officer in Idaho has made headlines after making shocking comments to a TV network about sexual assault.
Sheriff Craig Rowland was being interviewed about a proposed bill that seeks to create a system of tracking the physical evidence of sexual assault investigations.
As it stands, not every rape kit in the state of Idaho is sent off and tested. State law makers have advanced legislature that would mean police no longer decide what evidence requires DNA testing, instead handing the decision over to clinics.
But Sheriff Craig Rowland isn’t in favour of the bill.
What started out as an ordinary news report quickly turned into a flashback to the dark old days when he said: “They need to let us decide if we’re going to send the kit and when we send the kits in. Because the majority of our rapes— not to say that we don’t have rapes, we do—but the majority of our rapes that are called in, are actually consensual sex.”
Sheriff Rowland then evoked a hypothetical example of a 17-year-old girl who wasn’t raped, but just said she was because she was embarrassed that she had had sex. Sometimes, he says, “things just went too far and someone got scared”.
He then went on to explain how the rape kit itself is “not taken lightly” since it’s “very traumatic” to undergo.
You know what else is traumatic to undergo? Rape.
Sheriff Rowland’s comments are a perfect example of why this legislature is so necessary. The decision to test rape kits should not lie with a man who questions the validity of rape claims in the first place.
You can watch the full news story here.
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A rape kit does not decide guilt. is used to determine the DNA of an unknown assaulter to determine who committed the crime. It is not relevant here when both people involved are known and have admitted the event occurred.
So cases involving Mary-Lou and Jimmy-Bob having sex at college and the matter of consent is the legal issue so the kit is not relevant because they have both said they had sex/rape with each other and the legal case comes down to and hinges on consent.
The rape kit is irrelevant in these circumstances.
I am happy that he said what he said though because people can see first hand what women are up against now. And it's another nail in the coffin for the "false allegations happen often" crowd because it's made a lot of people realise that many girls/women are raped but recant from the pressure and scrutiny they are under.
Unfortunately, stupid people out there would assume because he's law enforcement then he knows what he's talking about -- so those stupid people will take away from that interview the fact that "most rapes are consensual". Which we know is just not the case.
I get your point but the difficulty is what to do? We can't change rape laws to the presumption of guilt. A defence can and indeed is bound to put on the most vigorous defence allowable. Sad as it is, in the case of acquaintance rape, which is a he said she said situation often, a jury has to decide who to believe and the sexual history of both defendant and accuser sometimes needs to come out for one side to build their case. There's just no other way to get a conviction.
Of serious crimes rape has the lowest conviction rate and I think that, yes, it's made hard for a victim but I also note it's the most commonly overturned conviction by the Innocence Project and spikes in the category of false reports relative to other crimes. That's just the facts, it doesn't mean we should predetermine a rape report either way.